Greens take democracy when it suits them

Give us our country back, came the rallying cry from an angry mob of shooters, reactionaries and sundry other fringe-dwellers incensed that the country was being run by "latte lefties" promoting gay marriage and kindness to queue-jumpers.

They were gathered on the lawns in front of Parliament House, the dull disciples of shock-jocks, brandishing placards of infantile imagination declaring ‘‘Ditch the witch!’’ and the ever-charming ‘‘Julia Gillard: Bob Brown’s bitch!’’

It was raw, percussive, unsophisticated.

Forget the voters, a majority of whom had installed the government. Forget, too, the Westminster system of representative democracy in which their man had singularly failed to construct a parliamentary majority.

The response from the broad liberal mainstream was moral outrage.

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Such crudeness directed at the nation's first female prime minister demanded at least this.

Yet what if – leaving the inherent misogyny aside – that demand to ride roughshod over the will of the people, had actually come from the left?

We already know the answer to this question. It was called the March in March and its central theme hammered in noisy indignant rallies around the country was essentially the same as the ditch the witch mob – albeit from the other side. This time it was Abbott who was pilloried in abusive placards and righteous speeches, as the green left railed against Abbott's odious platform.

This week, Christine Milne praised that sentiment when she fronted the National Press Club. To be fair, it was a more sophisticated entreaty to voters to ‘‘make the WA election the turning of the tide; make it the defining moment where Tony Abbott’s radical, extreme agenda is stopped. Make it the moment, as [Greens senator] Scott Ludlam said, 'when we take our country back'.’’

While Milne’s call for action via the ballot box was perfectly defensible, the underlying sentiment of taking back the country, like that of the March in March rallies so enthusiastically endorsed by the Greens, owed as much to the unfounded claims of the lunar right as to any respect for a democratically expressed will.

Stripped back, it asserted that the Greens speak for the majority and that Tony Abbott lacks legitimacy.

But where is the evidence given that this government has not even served out a single year of its three-year term nor handed down one budget?

It is not as if the government has done anything, excluding imperial titles, that can even be said to be outside its explicit mandate. Like it or not, Abbott's authority to repeal the carbon and mining taxes, rebalance the budget, and to stop the boats, could not have been clearer.

The March rallies so lauded by the Greens were presented as a protest against the Abbott government. But surely the real beef is with the Australian people who just six months prior had installed Abbott with a thumping 30-odd seat majority.

Such arguments fail to register it seems on both ends of the spectrum.

If ever there was an admission to having no empirical basis for a claim, it was Milne's evoking of the classic Australian movie, The Castle.

"The vibe of the nation right now is something you can't quite put your finger on but it's there, it's real, it's powerful, and it's building," she claimed.

It is beyond obvious to point out that the hapless lawyer in the movie had only resorted to "the vibe" because he lacked a real argument.

Yet some vibes are real. Such as the vibe of genuine concern, bordering on insurrection running through the Greens right now.

Unlike the former example, this one is based on empirical evidence including that the Green vote is on the wane, and that as a result, so too is Milne's grip on the leadership.

One need only look at the recent evidence such as the humiliating reversal suffered in her home state of Tasmania in the March state poll where it collapsed by almost 8 per cent statewide.

It followed a nation-wide drop of 3.3 per cent in the September federal poll.

The loss of another senator on Saturday could see a move on Milne within weeks with the two Victorians, Adam Bandt and Richard Di Natale, likely to step forward.

But even if Ludlam survives, as the late mail suggests he will, the word from inside the camp is that the Greens are actively weighing their options, with one figure noting that Bob Brown surrendered the leadership precisely because he could not guarantee serving out another six-year term as leader.

Milne's current term expires at the next election and her colleagues are already discussing succession. If Milne is looking for a vibe around the place, she might consider tuning into that one.